Heartbeat Pulse: Heartbeat pulse icon for health bars and menus: a glossy heart beats lub-dub with eased kicks, rings ripple out on each beat and an ECG trace spikes in step behind it.

Heartbeat Pulse

Heartbeat pulse icon for health bars and menus: a glossy heart beats lub-dub with eased kicks, rings ripple out on each beat and an ECG trace spikes in step behind it.

Heartbeat Pulse is an HD effect that loops seamlessly every 1.6 seconds, drawn on a 384 by 192 canvas. It is built from 5 particle emitters and 2 glowing strokes. Most layers blend additively, so it glows on dark backgrounds.

Colour

Recolours the preview and the free downloads.

Free download with a transparent background, cropped to the effect, 48 frames at 30 fps. Use it in commercial games, no credit needed.

Licence: use it in any project, including paid commercial games such as a game sold on Steam. There is no per-project licence to buy and no credit needed. Terms.

Roblox: the download is a flipbook for a ParticleEmitter. Set FlipbookLayout to Grid8x8, FlipbookMode to OneShot and Lifetime to 1.6, then emit one particle per cycle. Roblox setup.

REMIX WITH AI

Try:

Left empty, it just opens in the agent, free. Each change is one AI build, and you start with free builds.

Engine data for Unity, Godot, GameMaker and Aseprite comes with a plan: open it in the studio.

OPEN IN THE STUDIO

Change the colours, timing or size, or export for Unity, Godot 4, GameMaker, Phaser, PixiJS and Aseprite.

Try variations: new colours, motion and shapes of this effect, free in the studio.

FRAME BY FRAME

8 evenly spaced moments across the 1.6 s loop.

Heartbeat Pulse at 8 moments, from 0 s to 1.4 s

HOW IT'S MADE

Heartbeat Pulse is a compact effect made from 5 particle emitters. Techniques worth a look: glowing strokes traced along shapes, sprite modules, keyframed parameters and post filters (bloom).

It loops seamlessly every 1.6 s, and 5 of its layers fire in bursts, so it pulses instead of flowing evenly. Start times are staggered from 0 s to 1.3 s, so the layers arrive one after another. To change its colour, select "Ring" in the studio and edit Colour A and Colour B. Size on the same layer sets how big its particles are. The colour swatches by the downloads recolour every layer at once.

Layers, in draw order

  1. ECG baselinestroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a path.
  2. ECG tracestroke / additiveA glowing line traced along a path. A lit stretch of it travels round the shape.
  3. Heart glowsprite / additiveA placed glow. Extras: keyframed motion.
  4. Ringparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.34 s. It grows as it ages. Colour: red.
  5. Ringparticles / additiveA single particle at 0.5 s. It grows as it ages. Colour: red.
  6. Ringparticles / additiveA single particle at 1.14 s. It grows as it ages. Colour: red.
  7. Ringparticles / additiveA single particle at 1.3 s. It grows as it ages. Colour: red.
  8. HeartspriteA placed image. Extras: shadow and keyframed motion.
  9. Pulse motesparticles / additive2 timed bursts of hearts from a ring, 14 in all. They swell and then shrink away and slow down with drag. Colours range between pale red and red.

DETAILS

Length
1.6 seconds, seamless loop
Canvas
384 x 192, HD
Layers
5 emitters and 2 glowing strokes
Blend
Mostly additive (glows)
Colours
reddeep redpale redwhite
Sprites
Kenney Particle Pack by Kenney (CC0)
Tags
heartbeat, heart, pulse, health, ecg, hud, love, ui, ease

USING IT IN YOUR GAME

Phaser, PixiJS
The PNG sheet is a plain grid of frames that both can slice. A TexturePacker JSON atlas comes with a plan, from the studio.
Unity
Import the PNG sheet as a Sprite with Mode set to Multiple and slice it, or open the effect in the studio for a ready-made grid.
Godot 4, GameMaker, Aseprite
Open it in the studio and pick your engine in Export: with a plan, it writes the files that engine imports.
Web and chat
The GIF plays anywhere; the APNG keeps soft edges on any background.
Blend mode
This effect is made of light. For the same glow in your game, draw the sprite with additive blending, or export it on black from the studio for additive shaders.

Step by step: Unity, Godot 4, Roblox, GameMaker, Phaser and PixiJS, Aseprite, Web games (live runtime). Drawn with additive blending: see glow effects without a black box.

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